Iraqi Soccer Team Qualifies for Athens Games
From News Services
Thursday, May 13, 2004; Page D02
Iraq's soccer team, whose players were brutalized and whose stadium was used as a torture chamber under the regime of Saddam Hussein, qualified yesterday for the Olympics for the first time with a victory over Saudi Arabia.
The 3-1 win in Amman, Jordan, coupled with a 0-0 draw between Kuwait and Oman, gave Iraq a spot in the Aug. 13-29 Athens Games.
Among the teams that did not qualify for the 16-team tournament in Athens were the United States (fourth place in 2000), Cameroon (gold medalist in 2000), Nigeria (gold in '96), Spain (gold in '92) and perennial world power Brazil.
"Simply stated, this is the biggest moment in Iraqi Olympic history," Ahmed Samarrai, the president of the Iraqi Olympic committee, said in a statement.
Gunfire echoed through Baghdad streets and flares and tracer rounds lit the sky as Iraqis celebrated the victory, Agence France-Presse reported.
"Our entire country deserves this incredible win," Hawar Mulla Mohammed, who scored the winning goal, said in a statement. "When the bus pulled into the stadium tonight, we refused to think of anything but winning, and now we are headed to Athens."
The 24-member soccer squad will join at least six other Iraqi athletes -- five male and one female -- in track, boxing, swimming, taekwondo and weightlifting who qualified or were invited by the International Olympic Committee and sports federations. Four Iraqis competed at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
The IOC in February reinstated the Iraqi Olympic panel a year after suspending the agency over allegations that Uday Hussein, one of the former president's sons, used the sports office as a headquarters for torture and corruption.
Soccer players were among the athletes who said they were beaten and otherwise abused when they returned from losses in international events.
"The soccer stadium was the scene of torture under Uday Hussein," David Phillips, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and an expert on Iraq, said in an interview with Bloomberg News Service.
"The fact that Iraqis can now field a soccer team that displays the full mosaic of their population marks another step in the struggle of Iraq to become a normal country again."
--------------------
Wuut!
Iraq = winnar
Moderators: Jay2k1, DavidM, The_One
-
[GR]Kermit
- Posts: 1312
- Joined: 19-03-2003 17:20
- Contact:
